This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: When we think about nature in our cities, what often comes to mind are parks and reserves—planned, managed and clearly marked spaces that support animal and plant life in our urban environment. But that's not the only place you'll find it.
It also lives in the spaces we overlook—and we've proven just how complex it can be. Behind our houses, between streets, along fences, railways, vacant lots and forgotten corners. These places are seen as abandoned, marginal or empty.
They are what we call novel ecosystems—living assemblages formed in landscapes shaped by human activity and environmental change, where plants, insects, birds and other organisms find ways to persist and interact. And they can be found all over Melbourne in the places you'd least expect. Our story starts in an unremarkable scrap of green space in Melbourne's west, wedged between a waste management site and a shipping container park, under an old graffiti-covered viaduct.
Measuring around two hectares (4.9 acres), the site has stormwater flowing through a concrete drain that pools into a gravel-lined, slightly odorous pond. Traffic noise rises from the nearby highway and airplanes pass low overhead. Nothing signals 'nature' as we know it.
No invitation to pause, to look closer. Over four months, our team of researchers, photographers and artists explored this tiny patch and mapped everything we could find to reveal a landscape more wonderful and complex than you would expect. Each colorful dot on our map marks a location where we observed or heard a species during our visits.
If you hover over those dots, you can see what we discovered—from a blue-tongued lizard under the viaduct and white-plumed honeyeaters darting between shrubs to lichens thriving on concrete rubble. In this small area, we found 45 animal species and more than 40 different types of plants, as well as several mosses, lichens and fungi. The site was a heady mix of typical urban 'weeds' and introduced species, as well as a surprising array of natives.
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